Ethics in Star Wars

[Ratman_tf]

(Have not read whole thread sorry) Given that human and near-human slavery seems widespread in the Star Wars universe,

We are shown one planet out of (X, how many inhabited planets were in the Star Wars universe?), on the frontier of civilization, outside the juristiction of the Republic, had "legal" slavery.

I don't remember them saying Tatooine was not in the Republic? It was clearly in the Empire in Star Wars.

I don't know if Tatooine was technically a part of the Republic or not. But even if it were, it's clearly not a place that had a Republic influence or presense. "Republic credits are no good here!"

I think it's a simple case of, the further you go from the civilized Core Worlds, the more lawless and unsavory things can get. Seasoned space adventurers like Qui Gonn know this, and while they're not happy about stuff like slavery going on, they know it's out there, and there's not much they can do about it. And the Republic has thousands of member worlds with important political business to attend to. I'm sure the plan to civilize the Outer Rim is sitting on some bureaucrat's desk, gathering dust.

[S'mon]

In Star Wars Tatooine is an Imperial planet with a Governor. Vader tells his underling to ignore the planetary governor's objections to him landing stormtroopers on the planet.

When did this happen? I don't remember anything like that in the film.

While there was a Stormtooper presense in ANH (I guess Ani got the slavery problem under control...) there was no Republic presense in Phantom Menace.

He says it on the Star Destroyer bridge to the Imperial officer prior to landing the stormtroopers. Then you see the Dewback and the troopers in the desert finding a piece of C3P0.
The only Stormtrooper presence on Tatooine in ANH was the force Vader landed. I remember reading a WEG D6 adventure Tatooine Manhunt ca 1988 and thinking how weird it was that the adventure gave the Planetary Governor a force of six(!) stormtroopers. They just wanted to use a film still from ANH of the stormtroopers at Mos Eisley spaceport shooting at the Millennium Falcon. And when I counted, there were seven in shot. 

[S'mon]

I don't know if Tatooine was technically a part of the Republic or not. But even if it were, it's clearly not a place that had a Republic influence or presense. "Republic credits are no good here!"

I think it's a simple case of, the further you go from the civilized Core Worlds, the more lawless and unsavory things can get. Seasoned space adventurers like Qui Gonn know this, and while they're not happy about stuff like slavery going on, they know it's out there, and there's not much they can do about it. And the Republic has thousands of member worlds with important political business to attend to. I'm sure the plan to civilize the Outer Rim is sitting on some bureaucrat's desk, gathering dust.

Sure, that sounds right.

[hedgehobbit]

My take on droids, and it's completely my take, since as I said, Star Wars is schizophrenic on the topic of droids being people or not:

Droids have sophisticated personality simulation, to facilitate working with flesh and blood beings. C-3P0 is prim and proper, befitting a protocol droid's function.

In the Star Wars Radio Drama, which was considered to be canon for a bit there, when Luke is taking to Obi-Wan about R2-D2's behavior he says something along the lines of "I guess they didn't consider that when they decided to give droids simulated personalities."

At the time Luke didn't realize that R2-D2 was given special programming which was shown in an earlier scene. Here Captain Antilles gives R2 a special command override, telling it that it must try to find Obi-Wan and, to accomplish this, it can ignore various programmings even lying and ignoring it's self-preservation sub-routines.  [Which brings up the question of whether or not a thing can have free will if it is incapable of lying.]

So, AFAIC, droids only appear to have consciousness.

That being said, the only real ethical question in Star Wars is if it can be considered ethical to buy Star Wars merch, thus giving Disney more money.

The answer is a big, fat NO.

[Armchair Gamer]

That being said, the only real ethical question in Star Wars is if it can be considered ethical to buy Star Wars merch, thus giving Disney more money.

The answer is a big, fat NO.

  This is one of the wisest things said on this thread.

[jeff37923]

(Have not read whole thread sorry) Given that human and near-human slavery seems widespread in the Star Wars universe,

We are shown one planet out of (X, how many inhabited planets were in the Star Wars universe?), on the frontier of civilization, outside the juristiction of the Republic, had "legal" slavery.

I don't remember them saying Tatooine was not in the Republic? It was clearly in the Empire in Star Wars.

I don't know if Tatooine was technically a part of the Republic or not. But even if it were, it's clearly not a place that had a Republic influence or presense. "Republic credits are no good here!"

I think it's a simple case of, the further you go from the civilized Core Worlds, the more lawless and unsavory things can get. Seasoned space adventurers like Qui Gonn know this, and while they're not happy about stuff like slavery going on, they know it's out there, and there's not much they can do about it. And the Republic has thousands of member worlds with important political business to attend to. I'm sure the plan to civilize the Outer Rim is sitting on some bureaucrat's desk, gathering dust.

Tattooine belonged to the Hutts in the prequel trilogy. Said so in The Phantom Menace and was the most likely reason why slavery was legal there.

[Grognard GM]

...and was the most likely reason why slavery was legal there.

Maybe it was a vveerryyyy distant Ottoman province.